When Andy Stepanian and Dara Lovitz gave a talk on SHAC7 and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) at NYU Law School on Tuesday, most of the audience came half-expecting to hear a legal seminar (Lovitz is the author of Muzzling a Movement). Almost no one expected to laugh or cry with inspiration before the talk ended, although almost everyone did. (We interviewed Andy before this event.)

This was not a speech or a classroom teaching. Dara spoke so candidly about the absurdities of animal enterprise terrorism laws that even the law students had to start laughing with her. Andy spoke so painfully earnestly to everyone that few had dry eyes by the end of the talk. No one walked away depressed, though, as the duo were determined to show everyone exactly how much potential we all have to effect positive change, despite how much money and effort the animal enterprises dump into making us feel powerless and small.

Dara, the lawyer, spoke first. And the takeaway of her talk wasn’t “the history and overview of AETA,” but rather just how impressively unconstitutional the AETA is, and how it managed to be drafted anyway. She explained very frankly how a series of unconscionably illegal laws culminating in AETA were pulled over everyone’s eyes through passionately written passages. Passages about how animal activists victimize dying people who can only get a cure through animal testing. Passages that literally say that we owe so much of our lives to the selfless people in charge of the factory farm industry. And she put us face to face with how so many of our senators and policymakers are CEO’s and beneficiaries of devastating animal enterprises.Continue Reading…

Olympic ice skater Johnny Weir is going to don fake fur rather than real fur over his manitard because some muddling vegans tried to take the focus off his triple axel for a second to talk about his anally-electrocuted outfit, and he just CANNOT BE DISTRACTED FROM WHAT’S IMPORTANT. Weir gets what’s wrong with fur, he told the AP, “but it’s not something that’s the number-one priority in my life. There are humans dying every day. … Look at what just happened in Haiti.” LOOK OVER THERE! LOOK OVER THERE!

How about this: a slice of your debit transaction fees could support animals instead of banks. In Defense of Animals launched a debit card that will direct a portion of transaction fees to IDA, which they will use to fund “our chimpanzee sanctuary in Cameroon, Africa; our veterinary clinics and ambulance service for the thousands of street animals of Mumbai, India; and for our investigative and sanctuary work in rural Mississippi,” IDA founder and President Elliot M. Katz said. For use wherever Mastercard is accepted. No details yet on how to get one, but I’ll update if I find out.

Food Fight! Vegan Grocery needs our $$ to help cover their taxes. They’re offering a 5-percent discount with code “FUTAXES10″ (heh) good through Monday, 2/15. Time to stock up on chocolates and Ricemellow, MMMMHMMM.

New iPhone app from the vegan boozemeisters at Barnivore. Search for “vegan is easy” in the iTunes store. Update (2/15): Per Jason Doucette’s comment below, the app was not made by Barnivore, but it uses data from Barnivore.

Well, there you have it — the week that was. Did we miss anything? Let us know!

The Sea Shepherd fleet has been chasing the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica for about a month now, continually fighting off attacks from the harpoon vessel the Shonan Maru No. 2. Yesterday revealed quite a bit about the players on both sides of the conflict.

At first the Japanese did not acknowledge the Ady Gil’s post-attack distress signal. The Nisshin Maru finally acknowledged the signal without offering assistance to the ship sinking in Antarctica.

This behavior is getting a bit lethal for even the Japanese Antarctic crew. Even when they chucked grenades at my friends and I on the Steve Irwin two years ago, they weren’t quite so brazen about trying to cause fatalities. New attacks like these suggest they’re more malevolent towards humans than even we thought.

Update: This post at first stated that the Ady Gil wasn’t moving when the Shonan Maru No. 2 rammed and dragged the Ady’s bow before ripping it off. I since removed that statement because the debate of “was it moving?” became everyone’s sole focus of the attack. I’m keeping that statement off since the rest of the post seems to go unread if that statement is in, even though I stand by Captain Chuck Swift. But in case people are still curious to see if the Shonan Maru No. 2 actually did swerve to hit the Ady, here’s video of the ramming from the point of view of the vessel the Bob Barker.

Guys, so much happened this week, I don’t know where to begin. So let’s just start with restaurant openings, yes?

Sun in Bloom opened Saturday, January 2 and, because I am a man of my word, I went for brunch. It was good. Really good. I mean, check out that loaded burrito — avocado, beans, tofu scramble, and all sorts of tastiness up in that bitch. And no nutritional yeast, thank you.

On that same magical day, Vinnie’s Pizza in Greenpoint opened. Almost makes you want to move back to Greenpoint, doesn’t it? (Actually, no, Pizza Plus is right here and I’m laaaazy.)

Babycakes opened its LA location Sunday, January 3. I know, you’re in NYC and you can’t do a thing about it except drool. Well, drool on this!

Hospitals in the UK’s publicly funded healthcare system will take meat off the menu to cut carbon emissions and costs, The Guardian reports. Yes, less pollution AND less expense! ALL SIGNS POINT TO NOT EATING ANIMALS.

Sweden is using bunnies as fuel. They are shooting bunnies, “deep freezing” them, burning them, and then calling it biofuel! COME ON. BUNNIES, NOT BIOFUEL.

The Mouse King, played here by Willie Anderson, is about to get a ballet shoe in the face. Image via Ballet San Jose.

It happens every year — well, it could. Cast as little Clara or Marie in the Nutcracker, every night you have to take off one of your shoes and hurl it at the Mouse King to deter him from devouring your precious Nutcracker. But you’re concerned about this stage direction, key plot point though it is. Is this violent action reconcilable with the vegan way?

At the very least, you can make sure the shoe you throw is a vegan shoe. Before choreographer and animal activist Cynthia King — an alumna of The Boston Conservatory, The Ailey School, and The Rod Rodgers Dance Company — opened her Brooklyn dance studio in 2002, a canvas shoe with a leather sole was the concerned dancer’s only option. I confirmed this after purchasing a bizarre pink plastic pair of something that came to a point in the middle and molded to the arch with all the flexibility of a flip-flop. Whatever it was, it was not a dancing shoe.

The decision to betray my principles and buy real, foot-shaped ballet slippers was traumatic and confusing, and none of you will have to make it, thanks to Cynthia. In 2003 she worked with a local shoemaker to develop gorgeous, durable, and affordable ($24.95 per pair) split-sole canvas shoes, using vinyl instead of suede on the bottom (your feet won’t know the difference!), that hug the foot like a sock and create a more flattering shape than any of the Capezios, Sanshas, or Blochs of the pre-vegan past. So even though I’m told that Capezio can now do a special-order vegan slipper with a six- to eight-week waiting period (if so, they keep it quiet on their website), I’m sticking with Cynthia’s. They’re available immediately from her website and from Karmavore in Canada, and are simply the best slippers you’re going to find. Continue Reading…